The fifteenth Earl of Candlesby is master of the hunt and on a
chilly morning everybody is awaiting his arrival as they sip their
stirrup cups. He does indeed appear, but slung over his horse and
very dead. By the time the family’s doctor wants to confess
on his deathbed that he aided in the cover-up of a murder the body
is buried in the Candlesby vault. Only three people saw the body
and can guess at how me met his end: the doctor is dead, the man
who brought him back across his horse has vanished and the other
is the sixteenth earl.

Enter Lord Francis Powerscourt to investigate! This is a series
that does not always deliver up a first-rate novel, but when it
does (and it certainly does this time) I can highly recommend it.
Dickinson’s tenth book is not a short book but there is a
lot packed into it, from the tortuous plot to Powerscourt’s
new Silver Ghost and Lady Lucy’s nursing abilities, to an
absorbing look at the political situation. This is the time of Lloyd
George and the Labour Party, and for the first time the English
aristocrats are getting a taste of things to come. This is a story
about change, as well as a frequently quite gothic murder mystery
centered on a truly awful family in their moldering home, and I
applaud anybody who can write a truly historical genre novel that
is firmly set in a particular year. In short there is much to enjoy
in here, and if this is a taste of future delights then I look forward
to next year’s effort.